


Data

by celeste9



Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 12:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21446356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Harry keeps Macy company during a sleepless night watching the switchboard, which forces Macy to consider what she's been feeling.
Relationships: Harry Greenwood/Macy Vaughn
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Data

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine this taking place between 2.2 and 2.3.

As she took the last sip of her stupidly expensive organic espresso (Maggie’s employee discount really ought to have been better), Macy calculated how much caffeine she had consumed in the past twenty-four hours. Even at a rough estimate, the answer was alarming from a health standpoint and, essentially, ‘too much’. But as she looked for blinking lights on the switchboard, her eyelids heavy, Macy knew she couldn’t afford to cut back.

It was her, or it was no one.

Obviously there wasn’t an option.

Macy turned at the sound of light footsteps on the stairs, not Maggie’s heels or Mel’s combat boots, but Harry’s loafers. For a moment her heartbeat quickened.

“You’re still here?” Harry asked her as he approached. “Planning on sleeping?”

“No, actually.” There wasn’t any point in lying. “I don’t want to miss the signal if a witch is in trouble.”

“Macy--”

The board was there, in the corner of her eye. The names. She couldn’t look at it.

Harry did, though; she could see the way his gaze flickered, and the compassion when he focused on her again. He knew, even if she didn’t say it.

“You can’t help them if you fall apart,” Harry said, very gently.

“Great pep talk, Harry, thanks,” Macy snapped, knowing she didn’t need to be so sharp and yet not caring enough to curb the impulse. “Good thing I won’t, because I can’t. And I don’t. I don’t fall apart.”

“You know I didn’t mean--”

“Don’t really care what you meant, honestly.”

Harry stayed quiet, watching her, and Macy kind of hated that he still only looked concerned. She also kind of hated that a curl of guilt was springing forth in her gut for being so short with him when she knew he was only worried about her.

(Mostly she hated that she could smell him, his warm, clean scent, and that she remembered how his fingers felt on her skin. Not his fingers. The other’s. The assassin.)

There was another reason Macy was afraid to sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Macy said. “I’m just tired, and frustrated. Makes me snippy.”

Harry waved her off, coming over to perch against the arm of Macy’s chair. The urge to lean in and the urge to shift back competed within her and Macy wasn’t sure which was stronger.

She stayed in place, succumbing to neither.

“We’re all frustrated,” Harry said. “I can’t orb. You and your sisters have lost your powers. There’s an assassin with my face coming after us and we don’t know anything about him or what he wants. But you’re not alone, and you can need help.”

“What are Maggie and Mel going to do? You said it yourself; they have no powers. I’m the only one who does, thanks to my demon half. It has to be me.”

“Your active powers aren’t what make you witches.”

“No,” Macy agreed. “But we’ve relied on them. We aren’t good enough yet; we can’t save anyone until we’re better. So right now, that just leaves me.”

Harry exhaled. “What if I stayed here and watched the switchboard? Go back to the manor. Get some rest.”

_When I sleep, I see you, _Macy thought, but she absolutely wasn’t prepared to say that to Harry. Or to anyone. It felt like a dark, guilty secret in so many ways. Harry? Of all people? Really, Macy. Harry, who had been their guide, their protector, who could never –

And it wasn’t only Harry.

_You seem different, Harry._

The Harry she saw in her dreams was different, and not only because he was dangerous and, let’s not forget, shot her. He was intimate and seductive in a way that her Harry never was, and would never be, and Macy didn’t know if that made her uncomfortable because she desired it and wished she didn’t, or because it was the wrong Harry.

Or maybe she had no idea what she was talking about because it was all very confusing and she hadn’t slept a full night since before they relocated to Safe Space Seattle.

“I don’t think so,” Macy said, because it was all she could manage to say. “I’d rather watch the switchboard.”

Harry rested his hand on Macy’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. She resisted the urge to lean into it. God he smelled good. How creepy would it be to ask what cologne he wore?

“Perhaps you’ll at least permit me to keep you company then,” he said.

Macy smiled at him. “I accept.”

He smiled back at her, sweet and a little relieved, and squeezed her shoulder again before standing up to walk over to the desk where Mel had left the Book of Elders, leaning over it to examine the pages. Macy couldn’t quite decipher whether she was glad or not to have space between them again, to have Harry’s attention focused elsewhere.

She considered a collection of data points. Given that she was struggling to make sense of what she was feeling, it was always best to turn to analysis.

Point One: Harry smelled so damn good. Considering how appealing she found his scent, there was clearly some pheromone action at work, regardless of what cologne he may or may not have been wearing. Pheromones were the science of attraction and couldn’t be faked.

Point Two: Macy still remembered what she had sensed from Harry when she was the Source, when she had the ability to read minds. She tried not to think about it because she knew Harry hadn’t wanted her to and also because it was just… too weird. But it lingered there in the recesses of her mind, the first hint of a possibility that Harry might care for her as more than her Whitelighter, as more than her friend.

Point Three: When Macy had told Harry she would know him from a look, right in the eye, she had meant it. That was kind of scary – how confident she was about it. She felt sure she would know Mel or Maggie, but they were her sisters. Harry? Macy didn’t know that she could have been so certain about Galvin, and she had genuinely cared for him.

Point Four: When Harry was close, Macy felt safe.

Point Five: Macy couldn’t deny the way her heartbeat sped up when Harry touched her, the way her breathing would increase, that visceral physical reaction, her body’s increased awareness and excitement. It happened in her dreams, too, and Macy didn’t think it was only because she was afraid. She remembered his hand on her face, she remembered him leaning in, and she remembered the way she had wanted it.

Harry swore quietly under his breath, distracting Macy’s thoughts and getting her to glance over at him. His brow was furrowed in concentration and he was leaning his forehead against his fingertips as he pored over the book. It clearly wasn’t revealing its secrets to him and Macy couldn’t help her soft laugh as she watched him.

He looked up. “What?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Macy said, shaking her head. “It just looks like the book is winning, that’s all.”

“It is winning,” Harry said with an exhale. “It’s easy to see why Mel is so frustrated.”

“Mel? Frustrated? No.” Macy eyed the overfilled trash can and the crumpled bits of paper scattered around it.

Harry smiled wryly. “We’ll crack it. Eventually. Just might take some time.”

“Time we don’t exactly have.” Macy thought of the witches in danger, the switchboard, the demons joining together, the overlord. Their lack of powers.

The assassin.

“We have more than we could. The Elders weren’t perfect, and I know you aren’t entirely happy with all this, but you’re safer than you would be otherwise.”

“Safe. Right.” Witches dying, no powers but those of her demon half, and a strange, dangerous Harry who stalked her dreams. “It doesn’t scare you? What’s happening here?” It was as much voice as she could give to her fears.

Harry looked at her more fully, leaving the book. “Of course it does. Macy, he has my face. Of course I’m scared; I’m scared of what he could do to you or your sisters, and I’m scared of what might happen to more innocent witches without the Elders, without their Whitelighters. I know that you and your sisters will do everything you can and I’ve never met anyone more capable, but that’s a terrible burden to put on you, at risk to yourselves. I can’t even orb you from danger.”

Macy felt suddenly sorry that she had been so focused on herself that she had failed to consider how it must feel for Harry, knowing the assassin looked like him and yet knowing nothing more beyond that. Knowing that, as disconnected as he had been from the Elders, that Harry had still spent so many years believing in them, their mission, and his service. He must feel as lost as she and her sisters did without their powers.

“You just…” Macy chewed her lip. “You’re always so calm.”

“Part of the job,” he pointed out.

“I need another espresso,” Macy muttered, and stood instead, as if to alleviate the heaviness of the mood in the room. She stretched her arms over her head, watching the flicker of Harry’s gaze upward.

Harry stood then, too, stepping around the desk to stand before her. The seriousness with which he was looking at her, locking his eyes to hers, was almost startling. “I can’t orb,” he said, “and I’ve had as little luck as you have in finding answers. I suppose I’m rather a useless Whitelighter at the moment but you must know that I will always do everything I can to protect you.”

“I know that, Harry,” Macy said, unable to look away from his face.

She was remembering Harry leaning in, Harry’s palm on her cheek, only it wasn’t Harry, it hadn’t been Harry, and she wanted –

There was a red light on the switchboard, and Harry stepped back, and back again, space between them, the moment broken.

“I’ll text Mel and Maggie,” Macy said, and it was over.

They had work to do.


End file.
